Build enterprise account plans, MEDDICC qualification, stakeholder maps, economic-buyer validation, deal-health checks, and mutual action plans for complex sales cycles. Use when planning strategic enterprise deals, diagnosing stalled opportunities, deciding whether to send a proposal, or asking whether a stale MAP means the deal is dead.
Strategic account planning turns complex sales cycles into a validated account summary, org chart, MEDDICC opportunity plan, and mutual action plan that shows whether a deal is moving or dying.
When to invoke
"How do I plan this enterprise deal?"
"This deal has been in motion 3 months, why isn't it closing?"
"Should I create a full account plan or simplified version?"
"How do I know if this deal is actually moving?"
"Help me with MEDDICC qualification and a mutual action plan."
Account-plan depth
Use the full plan for strategic deals above average ACV, multiple stakeholders, sales cycles over 60 days, or complex legal, procurement, and security review. Use a simplified plan for the rest.
Is deal size above average ACV?
├─ No → Simplified plan: account summary + MEDDICC + next steps
└─ Yes → Continue...
│
Sales cycle >60 days?
├─ Yes → Full account plan
└─ No → Simplified plan
Component
Include
Standard
Account summary
HQ, size, industry, subsidiaries, technical landscape, tools, platforms, top corporate initiatives, hypothesis: "How can we help?", LinkedIn keyword analysis
Build before first engagement, not after the deal is in motion.
Org chart
Name, title, location, LinkedIn, email, phone, notes, domain of responsibility, technical specialties, personal win
Map C-suite, directors, architects, leads, specialists, users, influencers, and blockers. Do not map only the buyer.
Opportunity plan
MEDDICC plus issues, risks, mitigation plans, help needed, responsible parties
Validate with the customer; do not fill with assumptions.
Mutual Action Plan
Action, your owner, customer owner, others involved, due date, status complete/in-progress
Use it as the running agenda for check-ins. If only your team has actions, it is a demo, not a deal.
Deal health and MAP discipline
The Mutual Action Plan is the strongest deal-health signal. Pipeline stage, verbal commitments, and "they love the product" are weaker than customer action.
Signal
Green
Yellow
Red
MAP update cadence
Updated weekly
Updated bi-weekly
3+ weeks stale
Ownership
Both sides have actions
Mostly your actions
Only your side has action items
Customer movement
Customer completing tasks on schedule
Customer slow to respond
Customer tasks pending for weeks
Stakeholders
New stakeholders appearing in MAP
Limited new access
No new stakeholders engaged
Dates
Dates moving up or holding
Dates slipping
All dates in the past
Is MAP being updated weekly?
├─ Yes → Healthy
└─ No → Continue...
│
Has it been >3 weeks since last MAP update?
├─ Yes → Dead deal: qualify out or reset
└─ No → At risk: escalate to champion
Three-week MAP rule
Week 1 of silence: send a MAP update: "Here's what we've completed. What's your status on ?"
Week 2 of silence: escalate to the champion: "Haven't heard back on MAP. Are we still on track for ? If priorities shifted, let me know."
Week 3 of silence: qualify out or reset: "It seems like timing might not be right. Should we pause and reconnect in , or is there a blocker I can help with?"
Do not keep deals in pipeline because "they said they want it." Verbal interest is not action. A stale MAP equals a stale deal.
Economic-buyer validation
Deals often die at week 8 after a strong POC because the proposal reaches an economic buyer who has not agreed to the problem, ROI, risk, or strategic alignment.
Role
What they do
What they do not do
Champion
Influences, coaches, and sells internally on your behalf
Make the final purchase decision alone
Technical lead
Validates feasibility, integrations, and implementation risk
Own budget allocation
Economic Buyer
Controls budget allocation, makes final purchase decision, signs the contract
Absorb a price tag with no context
Validate these before sending a proposal:
Economic Buyer identified by name and title, confirmed by the champion.
Economic Buyer met at least by video call; in-person is better.
Economic Buyer agrees on the problem in their own words.
Economic Buyer agrees on success metrics and how ROI will be measured.
Economic Buyer knows the price range before seeing the final proposal.
Economic Buyer understands implementation, go-live, and value-realization timeline.
Have you met the Economic Buyer?
├─ No → Do not send yet; get EB access first
└─ Yes → Continue...
│
Does EB agree on problem and success metrics?
├─ Yes → Send proposal
└─ No → Align with EB before sending
Ask the champion: "Before we finalize pricing, I'd love 15 minutes with to make sure we're aligned on outcomes and timeline. Can you intro us?" If the champion blocks with "I can handle that, you don't need to talk to them," treat it as a red flag: they may lack EB access or fear the EB will kill the deal. Push back with value-context language, especially for deals over $50K.
MEDDICC qualification
Letter
Validate
Evidence to capture
M - Metrics
How the customer measures success
Success criteria agreed with the Economic Buyer.
E - Economic Buyer
Who has budget authority
Name, title, meeting date, problem validation, price-range awareness.
D - Decision Criteria
What criteria decide the outcome
Technical, business, and political rubric.
D - Decision Process
How buying happens
Procurement, legal, security review, approvals, sequence, and owners.
I - Identified Pain
The articulated business pain
Customer's words, not your summary.
C - Champion
Who sells for you internally
Evidence they have influence, access, and personal motivation.
C - Competition
Alternatives under evaluation
Incumbent, build-vs-buy, no-decision risk, and competitive dynamic.
Do not advance stages based on activity. Advance only when exit criteria are met.
Stage
Activity
Exit criteria
Stage 0 — Pipeline Generation
Prospecting
Qualified interest confirmed.
Stage 1 — Discovery
Environment, pain, requirements
Pain identified and stakeholders mapped.
Stage 2 — Demonstrating
Demo and champion building
Champion identified.
Stage 3 — Proving Value
POC or trial
Technical validation and POC success criteria complete.
Stage 4 — Proposal
Pricing, terms, scope
Proposal delivered after EB alignment.
Stage 5 — Paper Process
Legal, procurement, security
Approvals secured.
Stage 6 — Closed Won
Signature
Customer-success handoff.
Stakeholder and personal-win mapping
Committees do not buy; people buy. Map professional wins, professional risks, and personal motivations for every stakeholder.
Dimension
Questions
Example for VP of Engineering
Professional win
What do they get credit for? What pain goes away? How do they look good?
What happens if this fails? What is their reputation cost? Who is skeptical?
Team rejects tool, migration causes downtime, vendor fails after she selected it.
Personal motivation
New in role? Budget pressure? Promotion path? Burned by vendors?
New in role for 6 months, under pressure to improve uptime, previous monitoring tool failed.
Turn generic value into personal value. "Our platform improves incident response time by 40%" becomes: "You mentioned on-call burden is burning out your team. Teams often reduce on-call pages by 40% in the first month, which helps retention, and the improved response time appears in QBR dashboards."
Use these questions:
"What does success look like for you personally?"
"What happens to your team if this works? If it doesn't?"
"What are you being measured on this year?"
"Who internally is skeptical? Why?"
LinkedIn keyword analysis
Before engaging a strategic account, quantify their investment in your domain with LinkedIn searches.
Step
Action
Interpretation
1
Define 8-10 category terms, technical roles, and workflow keywords.
Avoid job-title-only searches because titles vary wildly.
2
Search LinkedIn for " + " and record counts.
120 DevOps results signals mature DevOps; 5 signals early maturity.
3
Map concentrations by location and department.
Concentrated teams identify where to target.
4
Compare counts to total employee count and refresh quarterly.
Hiring trends change and maturity is relative to company size.
If a company has 50 employees with SRE in profiles, lead with reliability, uptime, and incident reduction. If it has 0, do not lead with an SRE value proposition.
Common mistakes
Mistake
Why it hurts
Correction
Creating account plan too late
The first engagement is already unguided.
Build it before first contact.
MEDDICC filled with assumptions
Forecast and deal strategy become fiction.
Validate every element with the customer.
Stale Mutual Action Plan
Customer is not doing work.
Escalate at week 2; reset or qualify out at week 3.
Mapping only the buyer
Influencers, users, and blockers surprise you later.
Build the full org chart.
Ignoring personal wins
Business ROI alone may not motivate the humans buying.
Attach career, reputation, and workload wins to each stakeholder.
Skipping champion validation
You are selling alone.
Confirm the champion has influence, access, and willingness to sell internally.
Advancing stages by activity
A demo is not a POC and a POC is not EB approval.
Require stage exit criteria.
Terminology and preserved deal signals
Use these exact terms when they fit the account context: mid-market, check-in cadence, POC/trial validation, Environment/pain/requirements discovery, Issues/Risks mitigation, Green/yellow/red deal status, procurement/legal/security process, problem/solution alignment, career/reputation motivations, risk-averse stakeholders, and uptime/incident outcomes.
Related primitives
Name
Type
Use it when
enterprise-onboarding
skill
The deal is closed and implementation, adoption, and customer-success handoff are the task.
partnership-architecture
skill
The opportunity depends on partner relationships, channel motion, or ecosystem strategy.
technical-product-pricing
skill
The account plan needs enterprise pricing, packaging, discounting, or commercial strategy.
1---2name: gtm-enterprise-account-planning-33description: Build enterprise account plans, MEDDICC qualification, stakeholder maps, economic-buyer validation, deal-health checks, and mutual action plans for complex sales cycles. Use when planning strategic enterprise deals, diagnosing stalled opportunities, deciding whether to send a proposal, or asking whether a stale MAP means the deal is dead.4license: MIT5---67<!-- Generated from harness/github-copilot/plugins/go-to-market/skills/gtm-enterprise-account-planning/SKILL.md by harness/claude-code/scripts/convert_from_copilot.py. Edit the source, not this file. -->89# Enterprise account planning1011Strategic account planning turns complex sales cycles into a validated account summary, org chart, MEDDICC opportunity plan, and mutual action plan that shows whether a deal is moving or dying.1213## When to invoke1415- "How do I plan this enterprise deal?"16- "This deal has been in motion 3 months, why isn't it closing?"17- "Should I create a full account plan or simplified version?"18- "How do I know if this deal is actually moving?"19- "Help me with MEDDICC qualification and a mutual action plan."2021## Account-plan depth2223Use the full plan for strategic deals above average ACV, multiple stakeholders, sales cycles over 60 days, or complex legal, procurement, and security review. Use a simplified plan for the rest.2425```26Is deal size above average ACV?27├─ No → Simplified plan: account summary + MEDDICC + next steps28└─ Yes → Continue...29 │30 Sales cycle >60 days?31 ├─ Yes → Full account plan32 └─ No → Simplified plan33```3435| Component | Include | Standard |36| --- | --- | --- |37| Account summary | HQ, size, industry, subsidiaries, technical landscape, tools, platforms, top corporate initiatives, hypothesis: "How can we help?", LinkedIn keyword analysis | Build before first engagement, not after the deal is in motion. |38| Org chart | Name, title, location, LinkedIn, email, phone, notes, domain of responsibility, technical specialties, personal win | Map C-suite, directors, architects, leads, specialists, users, influencers, and blockers. Do not map only the buyer. |39| Opportunity plan | MEDDICC plus issues, risks, mitigation plans, help needed, responsible parties | Validate with the customer; do not fill with assumptions. |40| Mutual Action Plan | Action, your owner, customer owner, others involved, due date, status complete/in-progress | Use it as the running agenda for check-ins. If only your team has actions, it is a demo, not a deal. |4142## Deal health and MAP discipline4344The Mutual Action Plan is the strongest deal-health signal. Pipeline stage, verbal commitments, and "they love the product" are weaker than customer action.4546| Signal | Green | Yellow | Red |47| --- | --- | --- | --- |48| MAP update cadence | Updated weekly | Updated bi-weekly | 3+ weeks stale |49| Ownership | Both sides have actions | Mostly your actions | Only your side has action items |50| Customer movement | Customer completing tasks on schedule | Customer slow to respond | Customer tasks pending for weeks |51| Stakeholders | New stakeholders appearing in MAP | Limited new access | No new stakeholders engaged |52| Dates | Dates moving up or holding | Dates slipping | All dates in the past |5354```55Is MAP being updated weekly?56├─ Yes → Healthy57└─ No → Continue...58 │59 Has it been >3 weeks since last MAP update?60 ├─ Yes → Dead deal: qualify out or reset61 └─ No → At risk: escalate to champion62```6364### Three-week MAP rule6566- Week 1 of silence: send a MAP update: "Here's what we've completed. What's your status on <specific customer action>?"67- Week 2 of silence: escalate to the champion: "Haven't heard back on MAP. Are we still on track for <date>? If priorities shifted, let me know."68- Week 3 of silence: qualify out or reset: "It seems like timing might not be right. Should we pause and reconnect in <timeframe>, or is there a blocker I can help with?"6970Do not keep deals in pipeline because "they said they want it." Verbal interest is not action. A stale MAP equals a stale deal.7172## Economic-buyer validation7374Deals often die at week 8 after a strong POC because the proposal reaches an economic buyer who has not agreed to the problem, ROI, risk, or strategic alignment.7576| Role | What they do | What they do not do |77| --- | --- | --- |78| Champion | Influences, coaches, and sells internally on your behalf | Make the final purchase decision alone |79| Technical lead | Validates feasibility, integrations, and implementation risk | Own budget allocation |80| Economic Buyer | Controls budget allocation, makes final purchase decision, signs the contract | Absorb a price tag with no context |8182Validate these before sending a proposal:8384- [ ] Economic Buyer identified by name and title, confirmed by the champion.85- [ ] Economic Buyer met at least by video call; in-person is better.86- [ ] Economic Buyer agrees on the problem in their own words.87- [ ] Economic Buyer agrees on success metrics and how ROI will be measured.88- [ ] Economic Buyer knows the price range before seeing the final proposal.89- [ ] Economic Buyer understands implementation, go-live, and value-realization timeline.9091```92Have you met the Economic Buyer?93├─ No → Do not send yet; get EB access first94└─ Yes → Continue...95 │96 Does EB agree on problem and success metrics?97 ├─ Yes → Send proposal98 └─ No → Align with EB before sending99```100101Ask the champion: "Before we finalize pricing, I'd love 15 minutes with <EB name> to make sure we're aligned on outcomes and timeline. Can you intro us?" If the champion blocks with "I can handle that, you don't need to talk to them," treat it as a red flag: they may lack EB access or fear the EB will kill the deal. Push back with value-context language, especially for deals over $50K.102103## MEDDICC qualification104105| Letter | Validate | Evidence to capture |106| --- | --- | --- |107| M - Metrics | How the customer measures success | Success criteria agreed with the Economic Buyer. |108| E - Economic Buyer | Who has budget authority | Name, title, meeting date, problem validation, price-range awareness. |109| D - Decision Criteria | What criteria decide the outcome | Technical, business, and political rubric. |110| D - Decision Process | How buying happens | Procurement, legal, security review, approvals, sequence, and owners. |111| I - Identified Pain | The articulated business pain | Customer's words, not your summary. |112| C - Champion | Who sells for you internally | Evidence they have influence, access, and personal motivation. |113| C - Competition | Alternatives under evaluation | Incumbent, build-vs-buy, no-decision risk, and competitive dynamic. |114115Do not advance stages based on activity. Advance only when exit criteria are met.116117| Stage | Activity | Exit criteria |118| --- | --- | --- |119| Stage 0 — Pipeline Generation | Prospecting | Qualified interest confirmed. |120| Stage 1 — Discovery | Environment, pain, requirements | Pain identified and stakeholders mapped. |121| Stage 2 — Demonstrating | Demo and champion building | Champion identified. |122| Stage 3 — Proving Value | POC or trial | Technical validation and POC success criteria complete. |123| Stage 4 — Proposal | Pricing, terms, scope | Proposal delivered after EB alignment. |124| Stage 5 — Paper Process | Legal, procurement, security | Approvals secured. |125| Stage 6 — Closed Won | Signature | Customer-success handoff. |126127## Stakeholder and personal-win mapping128129Committees do not buy; people buy. Map professional wins, professional risks, and personal motivations for every stakeholder.130131| Dimension | Questions | Example for VP of Engineering |132| --- | --- | --- |133| Professional win | What do they get credit for? What pain goes away? How do they look good? | Reduce on-call burden, improve incident response, improve QBR uptime metrics, attract better engineering talent. |134| Professional risk | What happens if this fails? What is their reputation cost? Who is skeptical? | Team rejects tool, migration causes downtime, vendor fails after she selected it. |135| Personal motivation | New in role? Budget pressure? Promotion path? Burned by vendors? | New in role for 6 months, under pressure to improve uptime, previous monitoring tool failed. |136137Turn generic value into personal value. "Our platform improves incident response time by 40%" becomes: "You mentioned on-call burden is burning out your team. Teams often reduce on-call pages by 40% in the first month, which helps retention, and the improved response time appears in QBR dashboards."138139Use these questions:140141- "What does success look like for you personally?"142- "What happens to your team if this works? If it doesn't?"143- "What are you being measured on this year?"144- "Who internally is skeptical? Why?"145146## LinkedIn keyword analysis147148Before engaging a strategic account, quantify their investment in your domain with LinkedIn searches.149150| Step | Action | Interpretation |151| --- | --- | --- |152| 1 | Define 8-10 category terms, technical roles, and workflow keywords. | Avoid job-title-only searches because titles vary wildly. |153| 2 | Search LinkedIn for "<company name> + <keyword>" and record counts. | 120 DevOps results signals mature DevOps; 5 signals early maturity. |154| 3 | Map concentrations by location and department. | Concentrated teams identify where to target. |155| 4 | Compare counts to total employee count and refresh quarterly. | Hiring trends change and maturity is relative to company size. |156157If a company has 50 employees with SRE in profiles, lead with reliability, uptime, and incident reduction. If it has 0, do not lead with an SRE value proposition.158159## Common mistakes160161| Mistake | Why it hurts | Correction |162| --- | --- | --- |163| Creating account plan too late | The first engagement is already unguided. | Build it before first contact. |164| MEDDICC filled with assumptions | Forecast and deal strategy become fiction. | Validate every element with the customer. |165| Stale Mutual Action Plan | Customer is not doing work. | Escalate at week 2; reset or qualify out at week 3. |166| Mapping only the buyer | Influencers, users, and blockers surprise you later. | Build the full org chart. |167| Ignoring personal wins | Business ROI alone may not motivate the humans buying. | Attach career, reputation, and workload wins to each stakeholder. |168| Skipping champion validation | You are selling alone. | Confirm the champion has influence, access, and willingness to sell internally. |169| Advancing stages by activity | A demo is not a POC and a POC is not EB approval. | Require stage exit criteria. |170171## Terminology and preserved deal signals172173Use these exact terms when they fit the account context: mid-market, check-in cadence, POC/trial validation, Environment/pain/requirements discovery, Issues/Risks mitigation, Green/yellow/red deal status, procurement/legal/security process, problem/solution alignment, career/reputation motivations, risk-averse stakeholders, and uptime/incident outcomes.174175## Related primitives176177| Name | Type | Use it when |178| --- | --- | --- |179| `enterprise-onboarding` | skill | The deal is closed and implementation, adoption, and customer-success handoff are the task. |180| `partnership-architecture` | skill | The opportunity depends on partner relationships, channel motion, or ecosystem strategy. |181| `technical-product-pricing` | skill | The account plan needs enterprise pricing, packaging, discounting, or commercial strategy. |182183## Output template184185```markdown186## Enterprise account plan - <account>187188**Status:** healthy | at risk | reset required | qualify out189**Plan depth:** full account plan | simplified plan190**Deal stage:** Stage <0-6> - <name>191192### Account summary193- Company: <HQ, size, industry, subsidiaries>194- Technical landscape: <infrastructure, tools, platforms>195- Corporate initiatives: <top initiatives>196- Hypothesis: <how we can help>197- LinkedIn keyword signals: <keywords, counts, departments, interpretation>198199### Stakeholders and personal wins200| Person | Role | Influence | Personal win | Risk/blocker | Next action |201| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |202| <name> | <title> | EB / champion / evaluator / user / blocker | <win> | <risk> | <action> |203204### MEDDICC205| Area | Current evidence | Gap | Next validation step |206| --- | --- | --- | --- |207| Metrics | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |208| Economic Buyer | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |209| Decision Criteria | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |210| Decision Process | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |211| Identified Pain | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |212| Champion | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |213| Competition | <evidence> | <gap> | <step> |214215### Mutual action plan216| Action | Your owner | Customer owner | Others involved | Due date | Status |217| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |218| <action> | <owner> | <owner> | <names> | <date> | complete / in-progress / pending |219220### Deal-health call221- MAP freshness: <weekly / bi-weekly / 3+ weeks stale>222- EB validation: <complete / incomplete>223- Proposal readiness: <ready / do not send yet>224- Recommendation: <specific action>225```226227## Quality gate228229- [ ] Plan depth is chosen from deal size, stakeholder complexity, and sales-cycle length.230- [ ] MEDDICC entries are marked as validated evidence or explicit gaps; no assumptions are presented as facts.231- [ ] Economic Buyer access, problem agreement, success metrics, price-range awareness, and timeline are checked before proposal readiness is approved.232- [ ] MAP health uses update cadence, customer-owned actions, stakeholder movement, and due dates.233- [ ] Every stakeholder has a professional win, professional risk, or personal motivation when enough information exists.234- [ ] Stage advancement is tied to exit criteria, not activity volume.235- [ ] Output follows the `## Output template` exactly.236237## References238239- [technical-product-gtm source](https://github.com/beingsmit/technical-product-gtm)240- [Smit Patel](https://linkedin.com/in/smitkpatel)
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Build enterprise account plans, MEDDICC qualification, stakeholder maps, economic-buyer validation, deal-health checks, and mutual action plans for complex sales cycles. Use when planning strategic enterprise deals, diagnosing stalled opportunities, deciding whether to send a proposal, or asking whether a stale MAP means the deal is dead. It is listed under Product & Planning on SkillMD.
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